MILA  NIKOLIĆ  ARCHITECT

The project for the University City, located on a hypothetical site in Bahrain, draws inspiration from the urban structure of Belgrade, on the confluence of the Danube and the Sava, and the Free University of Berlin (Candilis, Josić, Woods and Scheidhelm). The new city master plan is a superposition of a European city and an Arabic casbah inspired mat, a play of the positive and the negative, conceived around and structured by different kinds of flows: the flows of knowledge, ideas, energy, and people.

A shaded central esplanade, like a dry river bed, brings back life to the desert, and like the Jardín del Turia in Valencia, concentrates the cultural infrastructure – the university campus, museums, mosque, sports facilities - and other city services, generating not only the public and cultural life, but also the energy for its functioning. It gives to the city urban form, identity and structure, organizing it in three dense quarters, accessible on foot, with diverse residential mixes and typologies and different personalities.

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